NaissanceE is a first person exploration PC game developed on UDK by Limasse Five with the participation of Pauline Oliveros, Patricia Dallio and Thierry Zaboitzeff. The adventure takes place in a primitive mysterious structure and the game mainly consists to explore and feel the deep and strong ambiance of this atemporal world but...

Reviews

“It’s an unusual, singular game that uses the normal tools of first-person shooter design (UDK) to make something plainly weird. I’d give it some kind of gold star for just being different.”
Rock, Paper, Shotgun

About This Game

The adventure takes place in a primitive mysterious structure and the game mainly consists to explore and feel the deep and strong ambiance of this atemporal world but platforming and puzzles areas will also enrich the experience.

NaissanceE is a game, a philosophical trip and an artistic experience.

The game is constructed along a linear path punctuated by more open areas to freely explore, some puzzles to solves and some more experimental sequences.

Going deeper and deeper in a primitive zone from “Naissance” world, the player will meet entities or mechanical systems. Whether those entities are life forms or pure machines, they react to player presence, to light and shadow and they may open access to the following.

If most parts of the journey will require only curiosity and logic, a good control and coordination on running, breathing and jumping actions will help to go through rare but exigent sequences, as an homage to old school die an retry games.

The main idea behind the game is to make the player appreciate the loneliness, the feeling to be lost in a gigantic unknown universe and to be marvelled by the beauty of this world. A world which seems to be alive, leading the player, manipulating him and playing with him for any reason.

Imagination is an important key to enjoy and understand NaissanceE. Walking in an undiscovered abstract structure brings questions about the nature of this world, about the meaning of this trip. Evocating and symbolic, the architecture and events will lead player’s imagination to find an answer, if it only matters.

Lasting about 3-5 hours, NaissanceE is a surreal exploration puzzle game that is appropriately atmospheric and moody, strange and surreal, sometimes puzzling and confusing, but most of the time something that feels like a trip into a strange, foreign, isolated world that runs by its own rules, rules that you have to figure out to progress and survive.

Only the most abstract of plots exists in the games; You start off the game running from some sort of shadow thing, and fall down to what can easily be compared to the rabbit hole. Your only given slight clues of a narrative, mostly coming from the chapters titles themselves, but the story is fairly simple... Lucy, our character, needs to go down deeper into this abyss and figure out what's down there. However, even without a strict narrative, the game manages to have a lot of personality and engagement. The loose narrative structure, surrealism, strange tripping moments, slight yet odd puzzle solving, and the strange world run by its own rules, remind me a lot of something like Yume Nikki or LSD: Dream Emulator, while it's a very different sort of game than either of those it in many instances can give off a similar otherworldly feel, and like those games, a strange inner-joy to try and explore and learn what you can about this strange, foreign, yet somewhat familiar place,

One super minor complaint is that I thought it'd be interesting if the game had developed more of its mechanics further, the game has the tendency to introduce an interesting concept and keep that concept to but a single section of the game, and never mixes and matches concepts like it could. However, the sheer number of ideas on display, how they're handled and presented, and how many of them strike the mark and work, more than make up for it, and also helps in the element of always guessing what may be coming next.

Besides that, the only complaint I have comes from a few moments. What you're supposed to do and where you're supposed to go is sometimes kind of obtuse, there's a few instances of trying to figure out what is the correct course of action to move forward that feels less puzzle solving and either trying to spot some obscure passage you missed or a guessing game with little hint, but again, minor in the grand scheme of things. There is one instance involving a wind tunnel and fans that I found to be a bit too trial and error, and sort of forced you to learn the breathing mechanic timing the character has while running to progress. There are some sequences the game turns more into a timed platformer, and these segments are notably weaker than the times the game moves at a slower pace, while I didn't find these segments bad, it is of note that they did strike less with me than most of the other sections of the game.

The game has several secrets to find, which were a joy to look for and uncover. Each of the chapters felt very different without breaking the flow of the game to what we learned before.

The flaws the game has are minor because the experience during its 3-5 hour run time is thoroughly gripping, strange, yet interesting, atmospheric, a sense of alone, sometimes dips into madness, and I'd even dare to say at times magical. It's a game that managed to capture a series of raw emotions of me whole playing with no dialogue or concrete story. It made me think deeply about things in the human psyche as I questioned my interpretations of things by mere suggestion, it can sometimes be mind-bending in the best possible way, and despite its short length, managed to be gripping from beginning to end. I'd say completely worth it for those who want to take a trip into a strange, interesting world.

NaissanceE is a game that doesn't know what it wants to be -- as many have noted, it begins as an exploration game, with truly amazing use of light, sound, and architectural design to give the sense of an vast, chill, abandoned underground landscape. In the early parts of the game, you find yourself wanting to hide from nothing more than light and shadows moving about in an indescribably sinister way. In the midgame, there's an astonishing underground city, which brings to mind Blade Runner, Brazil, with a bit of 2001 thrown in.

And then it suddenly turns into a frustrating "hurry up before you die" platformer, where there's no exploration, and you have to struggle even to reach the next checkpoint. If you get past that section of the game, it wanders even further afield, losing all sense of the atmosphere and enjoyment with which it started. Which is REALLY, REALLY disappointing -- I very much wanted to play the endgame that the first half of this game was hinting at, a steady progression into Antichamber-like distortions of reality. But it lost sight of that goal, and lost me in the process. So as brilliant as the beginning is, I can't recommend this game because it just doesn't follow through on its initial promise.

This game seems to have pretty good reviews. Honestly, I dont really know what game they played, because it was not the one I played.

Exploration is nil for most of the game, its majority is fairly linear paths. The character movement itself is imprecise.I cant even count how many times the jump button didnt work as I am trying to jump over a pit. It actually seems to like doing it more at specific instances than others.A number of the "puzzles" are just waiting for light to shine on your path, otherwise everything is pitch black and you dont know where your going. Its not a particularly grand looking game either. Definitely gonna cause some eye strain. Story is nonexistant. At certain points it requires you to do some very precise timed platforming sequences that the game really isnt suited for it which can be frustrating since you are waiting more on luck than refining your own movements.

I did not have a nice time with this game, but played it all the way through trying to give it the benefit of the doubt because of how many positive reviews it has.

This game gets a thumbs-up, but just barely. There's a lot of annoying first-person platforming, a lot of getting stuck in dark corners, and a migraine-inducing flashy section, but there's enough beautiful architecture and wonderful ambiance to makes up for it.

Just be sure to listen to the game when it tells you you're going the wrong way. :)

To call NaissanceE just a “game” would be a disservice to it. It’s an exploration of light and value, an abstracted treatise on loneliness and silence, and an experiment with architecture and puzzles.

My favorite aspect of this title is how well it maintains a “spacious claustrophobia”. The game shifts among moderately sized rooms, tiny spaces, vast expanses, and extreme heights that can elicit an acrophobic response (fear of heights). I would love to play this game on Oculus Rift for sure. The size relation according to the player’s movement and perspective/value shift effectively convey the monstrous spaces and architecture. But what creates the dichotomy of “spacious claustrophobia” is that, despite the looming heights and open spaces, there’s a ceiling – the player can only guess what this ceiling is part of. Later on this contrast is intensified in the desert chapter. The spaces and architecture create an enormous feeling contained within a very claustrophobic feeling.

On top of all that, there are all these buildings and objects and strange machines, but where are the inhabitants? The world is empty of any kind of sentient creature (except perhaps the host...perhaps). This compounds the odd feeling of "spacious claustrophobia” and lends to a constant sense of unease and creepiness.

Graphically the game is gorgeous. Fantastic value combos and muted color schemes add to the game’s atmosphere. There are too many opportunities for screenshots. Most of the textures in the game are smooth, but they blend perfectly with the other aspects.

There’s a lot of music in this game, but also plenty of silence. The selection of music is very appropriate, many eclectic tracks and many selections from Deep Listening by Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, and others. I actually picked up the Deep Listening CD as a result of the game, and also discovered some of Dempster’s other meditative work. The times of silence in the game are poignant and at times downright crushing. Play the game in a quiet place with no background noises and the silence in the game will definitely assault the ears.

Mechanics involve mostly running and jumping. There’s no “interaction button”, but walking into lights and cubes sometimes triggers environmental reactions. Running includes a breathing button-press mechanic, which must be timed properly to be able to run without trouble. This is important in later parts of the game where the player must continue to run without interruption or die. Speaking of dying and reloading, there's a lot of that at times, which occasionally becomes a mild irritation.

As to the meaning of the game…the developer states on the game’s website that it’s open-ended and intended to be looked at through different perspectives. For me, the game is about the cyclical nature of life: run, run, look where to go, look how to go, look when to go, run some more, get pushed and pulled by various forces, experience all the different values of emotions, run some more, and then rinse and repeat.

Overall, an oddball gem that will hammer a stake into your mind if you let it. An easy 10/10 for those who want a surreal experience.